But if there's proof that god exists then it means that there's no need of faith!
I mean you don't believe in a pen or a mountain, they just ARE.
I feel the whole stuff is a big misunderstanding in the meaning of faith.
I didn't follow much in the school type thing they sent me in but I know that faith does require the lack of proof, if you need proof you obviously are not holding Faith.
Heck if somebody proved that God exists there would be litterally NO Faith at all!
The rest is simply a consequence, if you can have Faith that God exists then you can have believe that he's waiting for you in this magical place where there's no war, hunger and candy lolipop for everyone.
That goes to my question that got buried on the first page. All the religions before the one true god showed up used faith as a tool because obviously their god didn't exist. You had to have faith that he existed. Why did the real god mimic that approach the fake religions used to fool the people?
Reminds me of the story of the believer that fell down a hole and prayed that God would help him.....
That goes to my question that got buried on the first page. All the religions before the one true god showed up used faith as a tool because obviously their god didn't exist. You had to have faith that he existed. Why did the real god mimic that approach the fake religions used to fool the people?
Well I don't have an answer for that but I know that it's actually not that hard to convert someone from one of the old religions to the ones we have now, but that from the ones we have now it's not so easy....
It may be because they're more resilient by design ('why did my house fall when my neighbours is still up?' kind of way)
Do you expect me to continue the discussion with you since you took this approach? It is not like I forced you to believe in this. Since you are going trying to make fun of what the others believe, I am not willing to continue this discussion with you.
If I express you or your opinions as unintelligent or insult you, it would just hurt the thread. Sorry, this isn't my my way of discussion.
As my last line suggest this is not an attack, I assume that your faith has required you to think this through, as I did when I was younger. I assume free will is important part of one self and I also assumed your religion considers it important.
If you dont reply to this post, its fine but as I said its not an attack or an insult if it is precieved that way.
If you ask for forgiveness, it means you regret what you did and will never do it again. If you are doing this over and over and asking for forgiveness, then you are just mocking yourself. I think you didn't understand the idea of forgiveness in the first place. There are many details and conditions that shouldn't be neglected. It is not as you said.
As my last line suggest this is not an attack, I assume that your faith has required you to think this through, as I did when I was younger. I assume free will is important part of one self and I also assumed your religion considers it important.
If you dont reply to this post, its fine but as I said its not an attack or an insult if it is precieved that way.
It has nothing to do with the previous religious argument, really. I wouldn't accept this attitude even if we were discussing something else. Okay, I appreciate your post to clear the misunderstanding and I am glad that it wasn't meant to an attack or an insult.
Himuro said:
I wouldn't want to go to hell because I didn't do anything really bad to deserve that, I think.
I'm not sure I'd want to go to heaven either. Would I have to worship him all day for eternity?
When you go to hell or heaven, then its over. There is nothing imposed. The afterlife is supposed to be heaven or hell (reward or punishment) based on what you did in this life, no more impositions there.
Firstly, a being religious or believing in god does not presuppose a dismissal of evolution. Many religions do not even have a creation story. Catholics for instance are not young Earth Creationists. They accept Evolution. The big bang theory is attributed to a Roman Catholic priest. Many atheists seem to think that evolution is the ultimate argument against god or religion but nothing could be further from the truth. "Evolution! So there!"
The point is it's much harder to be an atheist when you have no way of explaining how complex beings like us got here, so of course there were tons of theists before Darwin.
MikeOfTheLivingDead said:
Secondly the article refutes the study on several levels. He attacks the method of the study. He points out that correlation between intelligence and atheism is likely the result of environmental factors and cultural values specific to western civilization, more specifically the United States. He points out, rightly I think, that if you were to do the same study in different parts of our current world that the results would likely skew significantly one way or the other depending on where the study was conducted. He attacks a suppostion made in the conclusion that the study does not back up. He attacks Kanazawa, the author of the study for previous borad generalizations based on IQ. When speaking of past great minds, what he is pointing out is that a modern IQ test is not an absolute definition or measure of intelligence and more importantly that the conclusion of the study was a highly simplistic interpretation of the data.
As for the study itself, I haven't seen it and don't really know or care if it's a valid study. There are plenty of other reasons to think that there's a correlation (though not necessarily any causation) between intelligence and atheism - the huge number of elite scientists who are atheist for example. You don't need to accept the validity of the IQ test for that evidence to work. But like you point out in the bolded, he doesn't so much argue against the correlation as he tries to explain it away by attacking the very concept of intelligence. I'll admit some bias in favor of the modern western culture that has produced leaps in knowledge, technology, and quality of human life greater than anyone in previous eras could have imagined....
Question for atheist GAF:
Assuming there is only two places in the after life, heaven and hell. If God wants to throw you in hell in the afterlife, would you except it? What would be your excuse if you want to go to heaven? What would be your reaction, or you would prefer to leave it until then and not think about it right now?
I know that atheists don't believe in those things in the first place and that's why I wrote "assuming". But if there is, what does atheist GAFfers think? This question is no joke and isn't to meant provoke you guys, it is just a question that have always been puzzling me.
What about agnostics? As far as I know, they always say things like "I don't care if there is afterlife or no. If there is, it would be great or maybe boring".
Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question and as I said, I didn't ask it to offend you. I asked out out of curiosity. So feel free to answer it the way you like.
If I'm somehow wrong and end up in heaven... far out, man! I'd be curious what the point was though.
If I'm somehow wrong and end up in hell, then God is evil and worthy of even hopeless opposition. Only an asshole would create intelligent creatures, withhold all evidence of his existence, then punish those who come to the perfectly rational conclusion that he doesn't exist. Not worthy of worship, that one.
I just have some things to say:"PS English is not my first language and this conversation is translated so forgive the grammar errors(s)-punctuation etc'
I lived in Iran for 4 years(my mother's work made us go around the world alot).Made alot of good friends in school and they would all take me to different religious events.Most of these involved having some kind of snack or a big buffet at the end .One of these events i went to was being held on the outskirts of Tehran where houses were pretty big and usually had a big farm / field around each one.Everyone was talking and such and i met this gentlemen in a wheelchair.He could not move anything below the neck.We talked and talked about how it happened during the war and etc.I told him i hope he you 'don't mind me asking but do you believe in god? he laughed and these were his exact words :
"well,as you can see i can't move at all and everyday is a struggle for me.When you can't do much you Think alot and begin to question things.I too have asked myself this alot and all i have to say is that,yes i do have 'faith'.When i was young and went into the battlefield we all had aspirations of heaven and eternal bliss.You could say we were selfish.Now that i look back me,or i could say most of us went there to protect someone or something.For me it was my village.I havent lost faith in god because of what happened to me OR as some people say what HE did to me.In the end i choose to defend my family.friends and village and this was the cost.Religion is basically some simple moral teaching nothing more. Don't kill,don't rape don't steal etc etc.So even if you are an atheist just morally follow those .When you die standing in front of god just say 'hey,i had questions,doubts,i lost faith a lot of times or even didn't believe you were there.You made it so hard as i thought more.But i was a good person.,a just person-i did the right things:never harmed,hurt anyone"Believe me my friend if he is there even HIM with his almighty power wont be able to answer you or look you in the eyes and say 'you are going to hell for not worshiping me'If he does i will be there too and point to ME.What i'm getting to is that religion has been complicated a lot and used in many bad ways,just do the right things which you REALLY believe are right.And if god doesn't exist then well,make sure to say goodbye before leaving here since both don't know how much time we have.'
That was it he then smiled and went to chat with some more guests.i know most of what i said sounds cliche but if you were there what would you say? 'hahha you fool god doesn't exist sucker ' What he told me was very logical and explained very simply.I was a muslim and you oculd say i still 'am' but in not in that sense anymore.As he put it ive always been a 'nice' guy nothing too crazy have fun and let the good times roll.I always liked neogaf and still do but some comments like ' look at that selfish person thanking god' i mean who are me ,you or ANYONE to question them?
I might be too tired to make the point I'm trying to make but, what the hey. The main problem that always sticks with me is this. We can all agree that there were gods being worshiped before the one true god(in this case the Christian god) made himself known, correct? Then why did he take the same basic structure as all those false religions before him? i.e. that you can never see god or really know that he exists, instead you have to have faith that he is real. We know why all the false gods before him did that, because they were, well fakes. But why does God present himself the same fashion? If you were the one true god wouldn't you try to stand apart from the way that all the false gods were peddled to the people before him?
Christians have followed god in many ways I say this more often than not anyone going against the current form of christianity aren't railing against older or gnostic principles necessarily but those catholic/protestant and like minded sects. Funny what you mentioned about gods because it should also be noted gods were primarily a mixture of the sexes and leaned heavily quite on the female side before christian sects came in and took over. There is no shortage of theology examining how current christianity has basically stolen it's history of things like sumerian creation or other things form culture and made it own path.
The true god has already stood apart from falseness just to me we aren't in a environment of truth so how could we testify to such an existence. I don't get caught up in the quote you can never know god because reading through the bible once will make various paradoxes to testify to opposite of that. I believe one can never full know god but I say that also from a physics and mathematical standpoint that a part of something cannot fully understand the whole it's creating if it is truly large/small in scale. A lot scripture is what I call leviathan of distractions if you can make it through religion in general and not buy in to useless shit man put in you're already closer to god than most followers ever will be to me.
But if there's proof that god exists then it means that there's no need of faith!
I mean you don't believe in a pen or a mountain, they just ARE.
I feel the whole stuff is a big misunderstanding in the meaning of faith.
I didn't follow much in the school type thing they sent me in but I know that faith does require the lack of proof, if you need proof you obviously are not holding Faith.
Heck if somebody proved that God exists there would be litterally NO Faith at all!
The rest is simply a consequence, if you can have Faith that God exists then you can have believe that he's waiting for you in this magical place where there's no war, hunger and candy lolipop for everyone.
People mean many things when they say faith. Some people mean belief without proof, which is kind of nonsense because belief becomes more fractious and divided without evidence, even amongst religions, which means that people are just guessing. Faith can also mean that we must believe that our senses our accurate, that things we know to be true are actually true; in that sense, everything requires faith. It's the whole living in the matrix scenario. Or faith could just mean trust in someone. Christians use this a lot: faith is taking the intellectual component of the evidence and then trusting god.
But theology takes radical divides at times. There are those who think that belief in god is so intuitive that no material proof is required. There are those who think that there is just enough evidence that belief in god requires a leap. And there are those who think that belief is so air tight that it can be proven logically.
I don't call it faith, anyway. I call it dogma because that's what it is.
GT500 said:
Some people may say the the existence itself is the proof of God's existence. Others may say that our everything is this universe from atoms to galaxies are too complex to be created by chance.
According to the Quran, many people told the prophets they want to see God in order to believe even though they have already shown them miracles. In other words, they were insisting on worshiping statues or/and not believing in God. What you are trying to say is something like: if God showed himself to the people, it is just like showing a student the book in the middle of an exam, right?
Even if existence could only come about through god, that doesn't tell us anything about the kind of god. There are thousands of different origin stories, and none of them really come all that close to the actual truth. On the other hand, chance is not the same as randomness. The universe is not random since it has a clear order, so it is not required that things came out of randomness. But things happen by chance all the time. The chance that I emerged from my parent's DNA was incredibly small, and yet it happened.
And god supposedly shows himself all the time, at least in the Bible. He doesn't show his form because it's incomprehensible, but he shows an unmistakable manifestation of himself. If god really did the things now that he supposedly did in the holy texts, then I would be impressed, but life doesn't work that way. If god does exist, then he works in incredibly lame ways. I'll repeat once more: if you have any high expectation of god, he would be mistaken for natural causes.
I'll respond to something you said at post #150: the idea of free will is totally antithetical to inherited sin. No one truly chooses to sin. I find it almost grotesque, then, that people are at the mercy of a god who is at times totally incomprehensible. Your sins might or might not be forgiven? God essentially curses you with a disease and makes you beg for the cure.
Yeah, I also loved how he got the new truck from a wealthy benefactor who only gave it to him because the team was now winning and was going to state.
It's the whole "We love you, but only when you get results." mentality.
I've wanted to watch their other movies, but have not felt like giving into that much tortue voluntarily.
Fireproof (Good ole Kirk Cameron) is the first one after Facing the Giants.
Then they released one that, I think, is called Flywheel. It's about an evil man that runs a bad car dealership and does anything for the money, but then he comes across an old 1960s convertible and he realizes that god is working through this old car to make him into a better person.
It has nothing to do with the previous religious argument, really. I wouldn't accept this attitude even if we were discussing something else. Okay, I appreciate your post to clear the misunderstanding and I am glad that it wasn't meant to an attack or an insult.
When you go to hell or heaven, then its over. There is nothing imposed. The afterlife is supposed to be heaven or hell (reward or punishment) based on what you did in this life, no more impositions there.
In Islam, how important is being a muslim when we are judged? I know that in some sects of christianity, unless you profess Jesus to be your lord and saviour etc, you're going to hell, no matter how good you were, because there are none who are good in the eyes of God. Is it like that or do unbelievers have a chance?
I just have some things to say:"PS English is not my first language and this conversation is translated so forgive the grammar errors(s)-punctuation etc'
I lived in Iran for 4 years(my mother's work made us go around the world alot).Made alot of good friends in school and they would all take me to different religious events.Most of these involved having some kind of snack or a big buffet at the end .One of these events i went to was being held on the outskirts of Tehran where houses were pretty big and usually had a big farm / field around each one.Everyone was talking and such and i met this gentlemen in a wheelchair.He could not move anything below the neck.We talked and talked about how it happened during the war and etc.I told him i hope he you 'don't mind me asking but do you believe in god? he laughed and these were his exact words :
"well,as you can see i can't move at all and everyday is a struggle for me.When you can't do much you Think alot and begin to question things.I too have asked myself this alot and all i have to say is that,yes i do have 'faith'.When i was young and went into the battlefield we all had aspirations of heaven and eternal bliss.You could say we were selfish.Now that i look back me,or i could say most of us went there to protect someone or something.For me it was my village.I havent lost faith in god because of what happened to me OR as some people say what HE did to me.In the end i choose to defend my family.friends and village and this was the cost.Religion is basically some simple moral teaching nothing more. Don't kill,don't rape don't steal etc etc.So even if you are an atheist just morally follow those .When you die standing in front of god just say 'hey,i had questions,doubts,i lost faith a lot of times or even didn't believe you were there.You made it so hard as i thought more.But i was a good person.,a just person-i did the right things:never harmed,hurt anyone"Believe me my friend if he is there even HIM with his almighty power wont be able to answer you or look you in the eyes and say 'you are going to hell for not worshiping me'If he does i will be there too and point to ME.What i'm getting to is that religion has been complicated a lot and used in many bad ways,just do the right things which you REALLY believe are right.And if god doesn't exist then well,make sure to say goodbye before leaving here since both don't know how much time we have.'
That was it he then smiled and went to chat with some more guests.i know most of what i said sounds cliche but if you were there what would you say? 'hahha you fool god doesn't exist sucker ' What he told me was very logical and explained very simply.I was a muslim and you oculd say i still 'am' but in not in that sense anymore.As he put it ive always been a 'nice' guy nothing too crazy have fun and let the good times roll.I always liked neogaf and still do but some comments like ' look at that selfish person thanking god' i mean who are me ,you or ANYONE to question them?
There's nothing wrong with thanking God for something. No one is saying that. But when you're so vain that you actually believe God is so into your life that he'd actually use a little magic to help you make a field goal, I don't know. That sounds selfish to me, and not even remotely genuine or modest.
Well i dont really get how that is vain.I mean he/she has worked hard to get where he/she is.Most of the time they thank family,friends,producers/coach etc etc and nearly always in the end the say' and i would like to thank god' so =/
And also it's kind of built into us for example i was on the subway once and saw this kid who had like 80% of his body covered in tattoos,pierced lips,face blue hair was just standing there listening to punk music.The train suddenly stopped and he almost fell but me and a friend grabbed him and the kid said' phew man thank god you were here i was about to ram my head in the pole' Should i have told him'You asshole i helped you not fall and you thank god? ;p
My point is that people look into these things too much and nitpick =/
p.s dont hurt me :"((
I'm an atheist. I've been one since I was around 13 - though I was calling myself "agnostic" at the time, my position was essentially the same as it is now (I don't know, but I don't believe), and while saying that I'm "an agnostic atheist "isn't incorrect, it sounds so wishy-washy. I was raised Catholic, and was confirmed when I was 14 - I mostly went through with it because I thought my parents were requiring me to do it. I continued going to church until I was about 18 or 19.
My next-door neighbor at my parents' house is also Catholic. She began home-schooling her children when they were in elementary school, primarily because of disagreements. She's fairly conservative on most issues, though she doesn't go quite so far as wanting to put her beliefs into the law; she's fairly libertarian in that regard. Anyway, I've always enjoyed talking to her and discussing things with her, especially since we disagree on... nearly everything.
Last night, she invited me to a sort of Lenten thing in the neighborhood. So, I went. I imagine some of the practicing Christians might be familiar with the concept - there was essentially a workbook that the group went through, a sort of "call and response" structure, followed by questions that are supposed to prompt you to think about your religion.
On one level, it did annoy me; early in this thread someone got annoyed about God being credited for things that seem to have another, more obvious, cause - the person doing it. For instance, when the group was asked to think of ways in which they had felt God's love in their life, to a person "God's love" seemed to be defined as "something went well for me" - even if the cause of that "something" seemed to me to be "Your son went out of his way to do whatever-it-was for you," or "Your husband did that," or so forth.
On the other hand, despite the fact that credit was being paid where I think it deserves to be, I didn't completely dislike it. I think that despite my disagreements about why they might be, say, discussing how to teach their children to do an examination of conscience and discussing doing it themselves, that I agree that an examination of conscience is a good idea. And I definitely felt as though there was a strong sense of community within the small group (probably about 10 people).
It was an interesting experience, at least. I mean, I'm not completely unfamiliar with the "religious experience," having gone to church my entire childhood, but it was the only time in my memory that I went to something like this outside of a church-setting. I did feel somewhat uncomfortable in that I am, well, an atheist and gay, and I didn't want to bring either of those things up. I didn't mention either, but they've invited me to come again. I haven't decided if I'm going to or not; I'm not a Christian, and I'm not going to become one. My participation in the thing last night was purely observational... I'm not sure if it makes sense to continue.
And I could call the people delving into politics useless morons that revel in deceit but that would make me a douche :-/
Mgoblue201 said:
Even if existence could only come about through god, that doesn't tell us anything about the kind of god. There are thousands of different origin stories, and none of them really come all that close to the actual truth. On the other hand, chance is not the same as randomness. The universe is not random since it has a clear order, so it is not required that things came out of randomness. But things happen by chance all the time. The chance that I emerged from my parent's DNA was incredibly small, and yet it happened.
Isn't randomness the term we use to say that we don't know the initial conditions?
Mgoblue201 said:
And god supposedly shows himself all the time, at least in the Bible. He doesn't show his form because it's incomprehensible, but he shows an unmistakable manifestation of himself. If god really did the things now that he supposedly did in the holy texts, then I would be impressed, but life doesn't work that way. If god does exist, then he works in incredibly lame ways. I'll repeat once more: if you have any high expectation of god, he would be mistaken for natural causes.
bah that's like saying that some miracles in the Bible don't count since it didn't happen to someone the other side of the Earth :-/
Not saying you're not right here!
Mgoblue201 said:
I'll respond to something you said at post #150: the idea of free will is totally antithetical to inherited sin. No one truly chooses to sin. I find it almost grotesque, then, that people are at the mercy of a god who is at times totally incomprehensible. Your sins might or might not be forgiven? God essentially curses you with a disease and makes you beg for the cure.
Even if existence could only come about through god, that doesn't tell us anything about the kind of god. There are thousands of different origin stories, and none of them really come all that close to the actual truth. On the other hand, chance is not the same as randomness. The universe is not random since it has a clear order, so it is not required that things came out of randomness. But things happen by chance all the time. The chance that I emerged from my parent's DNA was incredibly small, and yet it happened.
And god supposedly shows himself all the time, at least in the Bible. He doesn't show his form because it's incomprehensible, but he shows an unmistakable manifestation of himself. If god really did the things now that he supposedly did in the holy texts, then I would be impressed, but life doesn't work that way. If god does exist, then he works in incredibly lame ways. I'll repeat once more: if you have any high expectation of god, he would be mistaken for natural causes.
I'll respond to something you said at post #150: the idea of free will is totally antithetical to inherited sin. No one truly chooses to sin. I find it almost grotesque, then, that people are at the mercy of a god who is at times totally incomprehensible. Your sins might or might not be forgiven? God essentially curses you with a disease and makes you beg for the cure.
The god your describe and how it works rarely intervenes directly unless the flood situation is involved outside of that such a god makes it clear the nature of the universe will take care of itself hence no need for work at a level people pray for.
No sin is inherited in the way you mention, though there is a paradox to it just from general bible scripture. Yes people do choose to sin for a variety convenient or survival based reasons over doing the right thing. Not hard to see a anecdotal example of lying in any form can you lead you to do something that in general everyone agree is a despicable act of sentient consciousness.
Well i dont really get how that is vain.I mean he/she has worked hard to get where he/she is.Most of the time they thank family,friends,producers/coach etc etc and nearly always in the end the say' and i would like to thank god' so =/
And also it's kind of built into us for example i was on the subway once and saw this kid who had like 80% of his body covered in tattoos,pierced lips,face blue hair was just standing there listening to punk music.The train suddenly stopped and he almost fell but me and a friend grabbed him and the kid said' phew man thank god you were here i was about to ram my head in the pole' Should i have told him'You asshole i helped you not fall and you thank god? ;p
My point is that people look into these things too much and nitpick =/
p.s dont hurt me :"((
you have very good views. I was not going to come in this thread but i came to say that. I always thought atheist or agnostic very genuinely good and learned person who are always reasonable. I respected them. I was very open before i came to gaf. thanks to god here i have seen so many bad atheist that my views are changed and now i know just like some religious person can be assholes atheist can be too. religious person behaves ass holic ways because he does not think on his own, atheist behaves like ass hole all on his own.
I don't necessarily agree with that. One can say definitively that Santa Claus does not exist because of no substantial evidence to the contrary, so why can't the same be true with god? Why does he get a pass and we must say "It is probable that there is no good." Instead of being able to say it definitively like with Santa Claus, Pink Invisible Unicorn, etc.
Because either it should be able to be a definitive no given the evidence provided, or we should be saying all things have a probability of existence when they can not be proven otherwise.
I have no problem with thanking God, because once again, that's a part of religion and faith. But it's obvious when people are just doing it to make people think they're religious and modest and good people. When saying,"Thank God for giving me this Emmy Award!" is an attempt to show modesty, it's the complete opposite.
We are talking about specific situations. Thanking God because you made a layup just sounds so...silly to me. "God helped me win the game!" So what about the other team? What grudge does God have against my favorite baseball team if they lose?
We were originally discussing people thanking God when they win a sports game, or score a goal. That's what I mean by vain: it takes away from the element of sportsmanship and places the God as the driver of your life. You have to be vain as heck in order to actually believe that God likes YOU so much that he'd help you to win a sports game, and let the other team lose.
How is that not the definition of vanity and self absorption?
I have a lot of atheist friends who laugh at religion and think its for the "weak minded"
I am Catholic and I fully believe in religion because once I had a small problem that couldn't be solved with human interaction. I had faith and believed and prayed and my problem was solved (won't say it because it's personal). I know that's not a full reason to believe but I am thankful and no one else could had fix it expect faith.
I would like to see counter-arguments from both sides.
my tidbit would be science isn't going to disprove god but science is just a translation for us humans to understand how everything works.
Question for atheist GAF:
Assuming there is only two places in the after life, heaven and hell. If God wants to throw you in hell in the afterlife, would you except it? What would be your excuse if you want to go to heaven? What would be your reaction, or you would prefer to leave it until then and not think about it right now?
If parts of this post are incoherent, it's probably because I haven't slept in a while. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Q: Would I accept hell?
Short answer: No
Long answer:
Well, for starters, I'd have to consider just what sort of God would send me to hell. I take it'd be one of those "I'm perfectly powerful, perfectly just, and perfectly uncompromising" Gods.
To accept hell from this God, I would have to respect him (on some level). So we examine respect then. What has this God done to earn my respect? Yes, earn, the ability to create alone is not worthy of respect. People such as Adolf Hitler or Josef Stalin could create many awe-inspiring things, yet they are not worthy of respect. So let us focus on merit.
Is perfect power a reason to respect God? No, for what is ability? It is not inherently moral, and might most certainly does not make right. Any immoral actions by God remain immoral, just because they are more far-sweeping or universal does not make them intrinsically moral. There is nothing to respect-worthy concerning a figure who demands devotion and tortures you if you decline. That is simply abuse of power.
Is perfect justice a reason to respect God? Possibly, but from what I've observed of the thought on many of Man's gods, they do not possess it. A mass-murderer and a non-believer being tortured side by side is not justice, it is unflinching adherence to an uncompromising view of morality. Love men? Boom, roasted. Don't believe in God number 8,437,981? Boom, roasted. Step on the cracks in the sidewalk? Boom, roasted. God supposedly banishes people of all sorts, and I cannot see the justice in torturing well-behaved people alongside the uttermost deranged. I could the be the nicest person in history, save millions and improve quality of life for centuries to come and the Christian God could come swooping in on my deathbed and say: "Sorry, I don't care about all those moral things you did, all that I care about was your opinion on my nature of being. Enjoy damnation." If this God is so uncompromisingly moral and just, what's forcing his hand in directly confronting me? A perfect God can't let people live, can't let people disagree with him without being brutally violated because of it? There is no justice to be found in a "Do this or I'll break your legs" scenario.
Is being perfectly uncompromising worthy of respect. No, not really. One aspect of my Christian upbringing that was most notable was the emphasis against "legalism", or reading too much into the letter of the law and forgetting its spirit. I guess God doesn't like compromise, because he sure seems to enjoy adhering to the letter of his law even when it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Another Christian example: Setting up Christ as the ultimate loophole to defeat sin, instead of doing the obvious and locking up Satan and thus wiping out the source of evil. Or better yet, let people sort out their problems without you menacing them. NOPE, COMPROMISE BAD REPENT REPENT.
If this hypothetical God truly respected our free will and our independence, he would enable us to live our lives free of dictatorial decrees. If he's a perfect God, this is not a problem. There are no excuses. A perfect God need not step in an dictate what we do in our bedrooms or what food we eat, he need not meddle in all we do and threaten us with horrors. That is a merciful God, one who has the power to torture and mutilate everyone who doesn't follow his standards yet restrains himself, he just lets people be as they are. True power, justice, mercy is embodied in restraint, letting people own their own choices, and not setting up false choices.
So in conclusion of this long, rambling post, no, I would not accept hellfire from this hypothetical God. I would not accept it because I would not be able to respect him for nothing in him would be found worthy of my respect, as small as that may be. I do not accept the dictates of tyrants, dictators, or false Fathers.
I have a lot of atheist friends who laugh at religion and think its for the "weak minded"
I am Catholic and I fully believe in religion because once I had a small problem that couldn't be solved with human interaction. I had faith and believed and prayed and my problem was solved (won't say it because it's personal). I know that's not a full reason to believe but I am thankful and no one else could had fix it expect faith.
It works the other way around, we don't accept anything to be true unless there is reason or evidence to believe that it is, and we do this so that we can have as many true believes and as few false believes as possible.
If there is reason or evidence to believe that it is true then it is a reasonable belief, if there isn't then it is an irrational one.
If God asked you to kill your child, would you do it?
I don't necessarily agree with that. One can say definitively that Santa Claus does not exist because of no substantial evidence to the contrary, so why can't the same be true with god? Why does he get a pass and we must say "It is probable that there is no good." Instead of being able to say it definitively like with Santa Claus, Pink Invisible Unicorn, etc.
Because either it should be able to be a definitive no given the evidence provided, or we should be saying all things have a probability of existence when they can not be proven otherwise.
Santa Claus and what you mentioned exists as a concept existing as matter or a physical being is another subject. What god is as a concept is both of matter and all that in between proving it true or untrue would require a feat that basically no human has been able to put forth. Even if all the versions of god are built by humanity this doesn' include what else could be known about the subject with other beings of the same level of consciousness or higher on the same subject. If you're going to use evidence a basis point for saying nay or yay it requires you to go effort of disproving all possbilities of a concept not just a limited amount. The responsibility of proving it comes down on you just as much as the religious in their own claims.
Why does God get a pass on such a thing please don't ignore the fact the most of the population of the planet is religious, superstitious, mystical, or spiritually inclined over the atheist or agnostic mindset. I don't like that reason either but that's the way life flows currently.
Anaxagoras must have forgotten Abraham to make that statement.
I have a lot of atheist friends who laugh at religion and think its for the "weak minded"
I am Catholic and I fully believe in religion because once I had a small problem that couldn't be solved with human interaction. I had faith and believed and prayed and my problem was solved (won't say it because it's personal). I know that's not a full reason to believe but I am thankful and no one else could had fix it expect faith.
I would like to see counter-arguments from both sides.
my tidbit would be science isn't going to disprove god but science is just a translation for us humans to understand how everything works.
If you want a real answer, theres an entire section I believe in Richard Dawkins God Delusion towards this. His arguments for all sorts of positions against religion. Its a good read if you can look past the first chapter (he has a go at the old testament god).
It works the other way around, we don't accept anything to be true unless there is reason or evidence to believe that it is, and we do this so that we can have as many true believes and as few false believes as possible.
If there is reason or evidence to believe that it is true then it is a reasonable belief, if there isn't then it is an irrational one.
If God asked you to kill your child, would you do it?
Dogma isn't inherently a bad thing since it could be useful if religion was actually true. But when people say faith, they make the spiritual out to be some kind of aesthetic, as if one cannot have things like love and trust apart from religion. It is that element that I object to. Faith is no better a word for religion than anything else. On the other hand, I can have faith without religion. I can have faith in other people.
Mael said:
Isn't randomness the term we use to say that we don't know the initial conditions?
If we don't know the initial conditions, then how can people like GT500 use the argument that nothing could possibly emerge from it?
Mael said:
bah that's like saying that some miracles in the Bible don't count since it didn't happen to someone the other side of the Earth :-/
Not saying you're not right here!
Fortunately in today's world we can know what happens on the other side of the earth and evaluate it. It should say something that the higher level of scrutiny and skepticism has reduced the claims of such miracles sharply. I'm mostly asking for some sense of god in the world, however. If you went through life evaluating what one would expect god to do and what actually happens, then objectively I don't think that one can say that god does much of anything at all. Religious people are often ready to trump up some supposed act of god in the world, but there is no standard of evidence here. Whenever something bad happens, they are also ready to make excuses for why god doesn't act. But mostly it's all just chance events, no intervention by an omnipotent god.
Mael said:
Is that so hard to believe that someone did a mistake so great that his 'sin' actually affects his family and others?
Religion can't say that and then preach about personal culpability. The entire theology of sin rests on this basic premise: two people decided the fate of billions.
Science will never disprove God and religion will never prove God exists. It is an individual choice/opinion on what to believe and why to believe it. Personally, I have chosen to live my life and see what happens at the end. I don't believe in God but I have been wrong before so we will see how it goes
malingenie said:
Absolutely agree.
Edit: In my mind they are both equally ridiculuous, just in case of misinterpretation.
I don't necessarily agree with that. One can say definitively that Santa Claus does not exist because of no substantial evidence to the contrary, so why can't the same be true with god? Why does he get a pass and we must say "It is probable that there is no good." Instead of being able to say it definitively like with Santa Claus, Pink Invisible Unicorn, etc.
Because either it should be able to be a definitive no given the evidence provided, or we should be saying all things have a probability of existence when they can not be proven otherwise.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
The difference here is that atheists and Santa Claus deniers do not claim with certainty that God or Santa do not exists, they only claim that they don't in the meaningful practical context.
you have very good views. I was not going to come in this thread but i came to say that. I always thought atheist or agnostic very genuinely good and learned person who are always reasonable. I respected them. I was very open before i came to gaf. thanks to god here i have seen so many bad atheist that my views are changed and now i know just like some religious person can be assholes atheist can be too. religious person behaves ass holic ways because he does not think on his own, atheist behaves like ass hole all on his own.
I have a lot of atheist friends who laugh at religion and think its for the "weak minded"
I am Catholic and I fully believe in religion because once I had a small problem that couldn't be solved with human interaction. I had faith and believed and prayed and my problem was solved (won't say it because it's personal). I know that's not a full reason to believe but I am thankful and no one else could had fix it expect faith.
There was a short time in my life when I thought something like this might've happened to me. But it all kind of fell apart when I thought about it... My problem back then was pretty freaking minor. Nothing serious. It could've just as well gotten resolved without God, but that's not what made me dismiss this experience. There are people in this world with far more serious problems than any I've ever experienced and with far more faith that God would save them than I ever did, and yet they receive no help. They pray for weeks or months, but they still die of cancer. A few children have died in the last few years because instead of hospital treatment, their parents opted to pray for their recovery. I pray once and my little problem is resolved? What kind of God does that?
Fortunately in today's world we can know what happens on the other side of the earth and evaluate it. It should say something that the higher level of scrutiny and skepticism has reduced the claims of such miracles sharply. I'm mostly asking for some sense of god in the world, however. If you went through life evaluating what one would expect god to do and what actually happens, then objectively I don't think that one can say that god does much of anything at all. Religious people are often ready to trump up some supposed act of god in the world, but there is no standard of evidence here. Whenever something bad happens, they are also ready to make excuses for why god doesn't act. But mostly it's all just chance events, no intervention by an omnipotent god.
Ask for sense of a god in a world of choice, lies, and masks leads to exactly what you see now. You asked for sense nature never said had it to be valid or workout in the way often desire. I wonder where people get the idea that god has a part in things when the faithful cannot point out any doctrines of their own to support a position god does moment to moment intervention on a direct level consistently. You said it best there is no real standard of evidence I'm only pointing out more so there is no definitive standard for such a belief or expectation construction with faith. Bad things happen for a reason but truth has taught me people don't like owning up to collective or personal responsibility so the buck is always passed on to the symptoms not the true causes.
Dogma isn't inherently a bad thing since it could be useful if religion was actually true. But when people say faith, they make the spiritual out to be some kind of aesthetic, as if one cannot have things like love and trust apart from religion. It is that element that I object to. Faith is no better a word for religion than anything else. On the other hand, I can have faith without religion. I can have faith in other people.
Oh I see you didn't mean any harm then.....guess I overreacted again
Dogma is not necessarily a thing that is harmful, it keeps the weak off the tentations and all that, I mean that there's value to boundaries people fix for themselves (or others).
Mgoblue201 said:
If we don't know the initial conditions, then how can people like GT500 use the argument that nothing could possibly emerge from it?
Huh, you can't! or at least you can never be sure or else you know the initial conditions and with that you can actually (with great pains probably and even then is that even possible?) deduce anything at all.
If you remove the randomness you only have determinism but that's pretty much OT
Mgoblue201 said:
Fortunately in today's world we can know what happens on the other side of the earth and evaluate it. It should say something that the higher level of scrutiny and skepticism has reduced the claims of such miracles sharply. I'm mostly asking for some sense of god in the world, however. If you went through life evaluating what one would expect god to do and what actually happens, then objectively I don't think that one can say that god does much of anything at all. Religious people are often ready to trump up some supposed act of god in the world, but there is no standard of evidence here. Whenever something bad happens, they are also ready to make excuses for why god doesn't act. But mostly it's all just chance events, no intervention by an omnipotent god.
I don't know, when I meet someone I never knew before on the train. Is it God that put him on my path or is that just happenstance?
You could say that the omnipotent god would actually trigger the chance, it's not like we have the knowledge to value whether an action is 'good' or 'bad' in the grand scheme of things :-/
Mgoblue201 said:
Religion can't say that and then preach about personal culpability. The entire theology of sin rests on this basic premise: two people decided the fate of billions.
perhaps you meant the Original Sin then?
Even though, a child's murderer will most likely hold the grudges of his father's victims, if that can happen then a sin being hold on further generations is not so different.
I'm not saying it's good bad or anything, I'm just saying I can understand why that can exists.
